-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- I grew up a poor kid in Detroit .

Government cheese sandwiches , occasional nights without electricity , long-distance telephone calls reserved for emergencies only .

Yet despite our struggles , my family never lost hope that life would get better for us . We never lost faith in the American dream .

And as trivial as it may seem , a lot of that had to do with Red Lobster .

Now before you dismiss the notion that a chain restaurant could somehow be a beacon of light , you have to understand that in my neighborhood , if your family went to Red Lobster for dinner , that meant you were really doing something . It meant you got dressed up in your church clothes . It meant you would be using a salad fork and maybe even ordering the fancy dish you saw on TV . It meant twice , sometimes three times a year , a poor family like mine could order a steak in a middle-class restaurant and pretend we were rich .

This is why when word recently came out that the chain was in financial trouble , I -- and many people who grew up poor like me -- paused .

`` Our industry is in a period of significant change , with relatively low levels of consumer demand in each of the past several years for restaurants generally , and for casual dining in particular , '' said Clarence Otis , the CEO of Darden , the parent company of Red Lobster , Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse , among others .

According to Forbes , Darden reported a 37.6 % drop in earnings per share in the first quarter of the current fiscal year compared with a year before . Red Lobster was the biggest culprit . The magazine reports that the restaurant 's revenue dropped 4.9 % during the second quarter . Darden this month announced plans to separate Red Lobster 's 705 locations from the rest of its portfolio with the possibility that it could be sold off .

As I 've gotten older and a bit more affluent , perhaps even snobbier , I recognize that with the exception of those delicious cheddar biscuits , most of Red Lobster 's dishes pretty much taste the same .

But statistics suggest that we have n't been going to restaurants like Red Lobster the way we used to , and it 's not because our collective palate has changed .

It 's because we ca n't afford to eat out anymore .

In the four years since the economy began to rebound , the median annual household income fell by 4.4 % . But for black households like the one I grew up in , income fell by nearly 11 % , more than twice the rate of Latino homes and three times that of whites . Red Lobster remains a favorite spot for black families to dine after church . I imagine it 's harder to do with over a 10th of the family 's income gone .

But it 's a mistake to blame the erosion of buying power and the decline of middle-class touchstones like Red Lobster or JCPenney on just the Great Recession .

The truth is , the working class has been getting pinched for decades .

From November 2012 to November 2013 , weekly earnings rose 1.1 % while the consumer price index increased 1.2 % , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . That small uptick may not seem like much until you factor in three years ago , wages increased 1.8 % , and the CPI was up 3.5 % . And that may not seem like much until you realize that almost every year since 1983 , a series of small ticks like those two examples has been widening the gap between between what we earn and what we can buy .

Consider the poverty threshold .

For a family of four in 1983 it was $ 10,178 . Adjusted for inflation , that should be $ 23,817.03 today . However , the actual 2013 poverty threshold is $ 23,492 , a difference of $ 325.03 .

When you 're living check to check , that 's a lot of money .

When you 're living check to check with smaller checks to work with , luxuries quickly fall by the wayside . Luxuries like going out to eat , which has slowed considerably since 2010 .

Red Lobster is not the only restaurant seeing more empty seats than in years past . It 's just the one that happens to have an interesting tie to the poor folks I knew .

The poor folks I know .

As the nation talks about income inequality and the prospects of raising the minimum wage , it 's interesting to note that the true buying power of minimum wage peaked in 1968 . That also happens to be the same year Red Lobster was founded .

I 'm no economist , but I doubt that the struggles of the working class and the struggles of a restaurant that depends on the working class for business are just a coincidence .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson .

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LZ Granderson grew up poor , and a real treat once or twice a year was to go to Red Lobster

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The chain is in financial trouble , which LZ says is tied to fewer people going out to eat

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LZ : Wages are down , and middle-class or working-class families are n't going out for dinner

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LZ says JC Penney and other stores that cater to middle class are in trouble , too